The crime writers have all given us forensically-detailed descriptions of grisly crimes. Now they are giving their backing to Dundee’s world-renowned Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification.

Fans can vote for their favourite author in the online poll with each vote contributing £1 to the appeal. The author with the most votes will have the new morgue facility at Dundee named after them.

The University of Dundee has launched the `Million For A Morgue’ campaign to support a new morgue which will allow Professor Sue Black and colleagues in the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID) to adopt the revolutionary Thiel method of embalming.

Detail

The University has already committed £1 million to the project but another £1million needs to be raised.

Professor Black and other members of the CAHID team featured in the major BBC2 series `History Cold Case’. The CAHID team have developed groundbreaking techniques in areas such as hand identification, which has directly led to the successful prosecution of a number of paedophiles identified from images of their hands found in obscene photographs and films.

The Centre also runs a major training programme in Disaster Victim Identification, which has trained police offers in practical techniques in human identification, enabling them to be deployed to help identify victims of mass fatalities anywhere in the world.

The link-up between the morgue project and the crime writers has come about through the long friendship between Val McDermid and Professor Black.

“I’ve known Sue for years and she has helped me tremendously with a lot of the sort of grisly technical detail that goes into my books,” said Val.

“This is a very worthy cause and will give Sue and her team a fantastic new facility from which to continue their world-leading research work.

“I am delighted that my fellow authors have pitched in to give something back to the forensic community through this appeal. I hope that lovers of crime fiction will support the appeal and get voting.”

Amazing

The new morgue will allow Professor Black and her team to adopt the Thiel method of embalming. This gives surgeons, dentists, students and medical researchers a more realistic method of testing techniques, practising procedures and developing new equipment and approaches.

“We will be the first University in the UK to exclusively use Thiel embalming and it is an area where, working together with other colleagues in the University, we can make real breakthroughs and change the face of scientific, medical and dental research and training,” said Professor Black.

Professor Black said she was delighted to have the crime writers on board for her fundraising project.

“This is an amazing group of people, who are among the most popular novelists in the world,” said Professor Black.

“The work I have done with Val has always been very interesting and I am always happy to have been able to help. To receive such enthusiastic support from Val and her fellow writers is tremendously gratifying and I cannot thank them enough for lending their support to this project.”

Professor Black is Director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University. CAHID is an internationally-leading centre in the fields of human identification, forensic anthropology, cranio-facial reconstruction and the study of the human body.